Carving Your Educational Career Graph

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Ever since we reach a cognizable age, parents start drilling us with the importance of building a career. The importance of a fulfilling and rewarding career is best understood by a middle-class family. Good education and an equally beneficial career is the ultimate goal of any middle-class family provider. Unlike our parents and grandparents, we have more educational and career options. However, availability of options does not help much. Instead, it complicates things on various levels.

Nevertheless, time is precious and you need to act ASAP to make the most of this time. Better late than never! You need to start carving your educational career graph right from teenage years. Let’s see each step individually.

Choosing The Stream Of Study

Do you want to do a mainstream study or diversify into other fields? The mainstream study is Arts, Science, and Commerce. The non-mainstream study could be learning photography, doing illustrations, getting into the music industry and others. This is a very important decision to make. Don’t let your parents’ choices influence you because ultimately, you are going to live that decision, not your parents. Once you make an informed decision, stick to it.

Your career will shape up through the decisions you make in the choice of graduation and post-graduation courses. Your eyesight should be set on the ultimate career goal and let nothing deter you. For instance, if you want to be a journalist, do BA in English or Mass Communication, MA in English or Mass Communication, do an internship and get absorbed into a media agency. These are precious years which you won’t get back ever. Don’t be indecisive. You need to have the specific educational level to pursue any career, no matter whether it’s a degree, diploma or certification course.

The success mantra for a successful Education career graph is planning and avoiding procrastination. No one is going to lay out a successful career for you on a silver platter. You have to work for it and the sooner you accept the fundamental, better for you. Once you complete education, it’s time for job search. Depending on your course, you may have to do an internship first. Moreover, do not expect a high paying salary on your first job. Well, unless you belong to an IIM or IIT schools, there is no chance of getting a handsome salary package. Further, with high unemployment levels, it’s definitely going to be a tough task landing on any job.

What you need to do is draw out a 5-year career plan.

Ask yourself – where do you see yourself 5 years down the line? For instance, you have MBA degree and 5 years down the line, you want to see yourself as a Marketing Manager with a 6-figure salary.

Next question – what do you need to do to get that position? Every employable person will answer this differently. There are no ‘given’ ways to follow. Go with your gut instinct and understanding.

Once you achieve 5-year career goals, move on and create another 5-year plan. Every step you take to rise up the career graph should be clever and calculated.

One of the main ingredients of a successful career graph is improvisation. You cannot have a rigid mentality. You need to move with the times and change according to circumstances. Nonetheless, do not waver from the goal. You need to have a malleable and adaptable personality to succeed and survive in a cut-throat competitive world.

There are no two thoughts about this. Money is an important facet of your career but if you are running only after money, you will be hugely disappointed. Before you embark on your career, it’s necessary to set the right priorities. Money is definitely not everything, survival is and to survive in a competitive career space, you need more than money making skills. You need to be analytical, shrewd, communicative, understanding, observant, diplomatic and a many more adjectives.

Conclusion

It is not easy to build a successful career. Many lose out along the way and have to be satisfied with mediocrity. Goals matter a lot. You need to have clear and focused goals to build a successful educational career graph.